Prayers for sale $1 yayay!

[macky]

For $1, I will pray that you or any competitor of your choosing will get easy permutations in one round (5 solves) of 3x3 speedsolve!
http://cubefreak.net/other/prayer.html

I'm only half joking. With 16 finalists and probably >30 sub-13 cubers at worlds this fall, even some of the best cubers will need a bit of luck to make the final. And if people actually buy this, it'll help pay for my plane ticket...and it would be hilarious.

I'm only accepting Paypal right now, but if enough people post about paying with a credit card, I can also arrange that.
[edit: I can now also accept credit card payments, though I prefer Paypal.]

Yay for summer and doing random things.

Best,
macky

 

[xXdaveXsuperstarXx]

What's the point of this?

 

[Rama]

 

[Zaxef]

...









(too short!)

 

[xXdaveXsuperstarXx]

Maybe if you sold 100 prayers you might be able to buy a cracker from the flight attendant.

 

[macky]

But of course I'm not expecting to make much out of this! I guess I need to make it explicit: I want to know what others think about the cluttering of top cubers and what effect that has on competitions, especially one like Worlds, because of the inherently probabilistic nature of speedcubing.

 

[Paul Wagner]

For $1, I will pray that you or any competitor of your choosing will get easy permutations in one round (5 solves) of 3x3 speedsolve!
http://cubefreak.net/speed/prayer.html

I'm only half joking. With 16 finalists and probably >30 sub-13 cubers at worlds this fall, even some of the best cubers will need a bit of luck to make the final. And if people actually buy this, it'll help pay for my plane ticket...and it would be hilarious.

I'm only accepting Paypal right now, but if enough people post about paying with a credit card, I can also arrange that.

Yay for summer and doing random things.

Best,
macky

Cubing indulgences?

 

[Mike Hughey]

For $1, I will pray that you or any competitor of your choosing will get easy permutations in one round (5 solves) of 3x3 speedsolve!
http://cubefreak.net/speed/prayer.html

I'm only half joking. With 16 finalists and probably >30 sub-13 cubers at worlds this fall, even some of the best cubers will need a bit of luck to make the final. And if people actually buy this, it'll help pay for my plane ticket...and it would be hilarious.

I'm only accepting Paypal right now, but if enough people post about paying with a credit card, I can also arrange that.

Yay for summer and doing random things.

Best,
macky

Cubing indulgences?

No, no, you obviously don't understand your doctrine. Indulgences would get you out of cubing purgatory. If you received a plenary cubing indulgence and then died immediately, you would immediately enter blissful cubing eternity with no parity ever and perpetual LL skips, solving just like Frank Morris. If you received only a partial cubing indulgence, the amount of time your parity-suffering would last would be reduced, so you'd have fewer frustrating solves and lockups before reaching cubing heaven.

Macky's offer is just sale of prayers; not in the same league at all. There are no guarantees for any kind of results from prayers, unlike with indulgences. If Macky were selling indulgences, they'd be worth much more than $1.

But I wonder if Macky has the authority from Frank to grant indulgences?

 

[blah]

But of course I'm not expecting to make much out of this! I guess I need to make it explicit: I want to know what others think about the cluttering of top cubers and what effect that has on competitions, especially one like Worlds, because of the inherently probabilistic nature of speedcubing.

Still at that since WC07? Strongly and fully agree with your thoughts on the Yahoo! forum

 

[Swordsman Kirby]

with no parity ever and perpetual LL skips, solving just like Frank Morris.

Frank Morris gets perpetual F3L skips, so it's not solving like him.

 

[Lucas Garron]

What if we ask for a round that we're not sure someone will get into?
Also, does PLL skip count?
("2 of each U, and a skip")

 

[cmhardw]

Macky can I put in a special request? May I request that all of my commutators in a final round 3x3x3 BLD solve be 8 movers (this of course assumes I even make it that far - think happy thoughts)? Or is that pushing the capabilities of the prayer? If it might be, can I ask for any combination of only 8 or 9 movers?

;-)

--edit 1--
Seriously though, I do agree with your assessment that with so many people clustered at the top, all of whom would have a very strong shot at the top-16, that getting into the finals will be very tough this year.

--edit 2--
I am very seriously considering donating to this fund. But seriously though - can you help me out on the 8 movers? ;-)

Chris

 

[macky]

Still at that since WC07? Strongly and fully agree with your thoughts on the Yahoo! forum

Thanks!

For people who haven't been around that long, here's that post from the Yahoo! forum:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/speedsolvingrubikscube/message/38365

Unlike what I suggest on there, Nakaji won Worlds 07 all on his own (and I think I wrote that somewhere later), but it'll be hard for anyone to do the same this year, and even harder in another two years. There will always be some limit to speedcubing, regardless of whether or not Fridrich continues to be the method of choice. As more and more people approach that limit, their time difference will necessarily become smaller than the variation caused by different permutations, even assuming flawless execution on every solve.

I was thinking about finding the average and standard deviation for the most recent averages of 5 of the best cubers, but there are people here who can do a much better job than I can. If we also figure out the time variation coming just from OLL and PLL, we can do some interesting calculations. For example, what is the probability of a particular cuber making the final? What if you double the number of cubers in the same time range? Would anyone be up for some studies like this? (Lucas?)

What I'd like to see is an annual average (of at least xx solves), say throwing out the best and the worst 10%. The World Champion would then be the winner of that one competition, and the World Championship would be special not as a competition, but as a rare occasion that brings together cubers of different nationalities.

The ranking system and titles will change one way or another, no doubt about it.

Responding to xXdaveXsuperstarXx, Rama, Zaxef: Perhaps my first post was in bad taste. But it's hilarious! And I do admit: if you appreciate the humor, I wouldn't mind some spare change.

Macky can I put in a special request? May I request that all of my commutators in a final round 3x3x3 BLD solve be 8 movers (this of course assumes I even make it that far - think happy thoughts)? Or is that pushing the capabilities of the prayer? If it might be, can I ask for any combination of only 8 or 9 movers?

Hehe I can at least pray for anything you want.

macky

 

[blah]

Would anyone be up for some studies like this? (Lucas?)

Nah. He's always too busy with homework

 

[luke1984]

Do you even know how offensive this is to your own and our intellect?

 

[StachuK1992]

not at all?

 

[fanwuq]

Do you even know how offensive this is to your own and our intellect?

Why?

Do you even know who is macky?
Did you bother to read this post:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/speedsolvingrubikscube/message/38365
?

I'm wondering if the prayer would have some positive placebo effect that would make the cubist more confident during the final round.

 

[luke1984]

not at all?

Do you even know how offensive this is to your own and our intellect?

Why?

Do you even know who is macky?
Did you bother to read this post:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/speedsolvingrubikscube/message/38365
?

I'm wondering if the prayer would have some positive placebo effect that would make the cubist more confident during the final round.

So, I misinterpreted?

 

[brunson]

So, I misinterpreted?

It's hard to say since I have no idea what you're alluding to.

 

[luke1984]

Do you even know how offensive this is to your own and our intellect?

Why?

Do you even know who is macky?
Did you bother to read this post:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/speedsolvingrubikscube/message/38365
?

I'm wondering if the prayer would have some positive placebo effect that would make the cubist more confident during the final round.

Research actually shows prayer has a reverse placebo effect. The prayer group experiences much more stress because they're under higher pressure of performing better than the non-prayer group, and therefore perform worse.

So, I misinterpreted?

It's hard to say since I have no idea what you're alluding to.

Nevermind, I obviously don't know what this is about. I thought the topicstarter was serious about prayer helping to compete better, and in my opinion that's unintelligable.